Family

Diane Fenton, of Little Ferry, who lost her son Matthew in 2006, at a Gold Star Mothers dinner, October 1, 2012, held by the Nam Knights Motorcycle Club of America at Casa Qiuseppe in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. (Mitsu Yasukawa/The Record/MCT)

Diane Fentonsays she was one of the more fortunate among the mothers who have seen their soldier sons and daughters march off to war and return in a coffin.

The Little Ferry, N.J., woman was able to hold her son's hand and hug him before he died.

Marine Sgt. Matthew Fenton, a husky 24-year-old horribly wounded in Iraq, lay on life support at a Naval hospital in Bethesda, Md., in 2006 surrounded by loved ones. There would be no miracle recovery. And so, after a weeklong vigil, they cried as Diane Fenton gave doctors permission to take him off life support.

"I would like to think that Matthew knew we were all there," Fenton said.

But other than having had that chance to say goodbye, Fenton shares all the other aspects of heartache faced by mothers like herself. So it's been a great comfort to join the Gold Star Mothers, made up of women who have lost sons or daughters in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It's been very helpful," Fenton said.

The American Gold Star Mothers was founded in 1928 as a support group by a woman who lost her son in World War I.

What makes it different from other military-memorial organizations is that there are no rigid meeting schedules, no formal counseling sessions. Mothers, most in their 40s to early 50s, get together informally, whenever one feels the need to reach out, especially on the anniversary of a child's death.

And true to the Gold Star credo, it is not a weepy group - they just agree there will be sudden moments when they simply need one another's support.

"When one is having a bad day, we'll call each other," said Shirley Parrello of West Milford, N.J., whose son, Marine Lance Cpl. Brian Parrello, 19, was killed in Al Anbar province in Iraq on Jan. 1, 2005. "You are able to share things with them you can't really share with anybody else, because they understand. I feel comfortable being with military people because they get it."

Pam Schwarz of Carlstadt, N.J., attended private and Veterans Administration counseling sessions after her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Michael Schwarz, 20, was killed by a sniper in Iraq in November 2006.

While Michael was deployed, Schwarz said she was afraid to answer the phone or the door.

"This is not a general grief; it's a deeper grief," Schwarz said of her son's death. "Mothers who haven't been through it, they don't have a clue what military families go through unless they have veterans in the family."

"We are all in the same boat," said Judith Tapper, 73, of Atco, N.J., the president of the state chapter. "We all share the same heartache." Tapper's son, David, was a 32-year-old Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan in 2003.

She said she considers the mothers of the 6,587 soldiers killed in action since 9/11 all Gold Star mothers, whether they are formally members or not.

Surprisingly, until they join, usually years after the death of a child, many women are not familiar with the organization.

At the time they met, Schwarz was president of the Gold Star Mothers' Paterson, N.J., chapter. "You should join," Schwarz told her.

Fenton, Parrello and Schwarz were at ease recently in a cozy Italian restaurant, Casa Giuseppe on Valley Brook Avenue in Lyndhurst, N.J., where they and other Gold Star Mothers, shared pasta fagioli and stuffed pork chops with burly, tattooed bikers from the Nam Knights of America Motorcycle Club.

The scene might have mystified curious passers-by, but to the mothers and the men it was a family gathering in the spirit of hope and faith, a meeting of two generations; one whose soldiers were scorned, the other representing less than 1 percent of the soldiers doing the fighting in the war on terror.

Fred "Fritz' Reiman of Norwood, N.J., the president of the Nam Knights, the gruffest-looking of the bunch, choked back tears as he welcomed the mothers.

"You'll always be in our hearts; we are so lucky to have you with us," Reiman said, hoisting a glass in a toast before helping to hand out white roses tinged with gold, the Gold Star Mothers colors.

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